y does not produce the goods, then you are
not tempted to spend your money.

We adopted a Corrupt Practices Act, the reasonable foundation of which no
man could question, and an Election Act, which every man predicted was not
going to work, but which did work,--to the emancipation of the voters of
New Jersey.

All these things are now commonplaces with us. We like the laws that we
have passed, and no man ventures to suggest any material change in them.
Why didn't we get them long ago? What hindered us? Why, because we had a
closed government; not an open government. It did not belong to us. It was
managed by little groups of men whose names we knew, but whom somehow we
didn't seem able to dislodge. When we elected men pledged to dislodge
them, they only went into partnership with them. Apparently what was
necessary was to call in an amateur who knew so little about the game that
he supposed that he was expected to do what he had promised to do.

There are gentlemen who have criticised the Governor of New Jersey because
he did not do certain things,--for instance, bring a lot of indictments.
The Governor of New Jersey does not think it necessary to defend himself;
but he would like to call attention to a very interesting thing that
happened in his State: When the people had taken over control of the
government, a curious change was wrought in the souls of a great many men;
a sudden moral awakening took place, and we simply could not find
culprits against whom to bring indictments; it was like a Sunday school,
the way they obeyed the laws.

* * * * *

So I say, there is nothing very difficult about resuming our own
government. There is nothing to appall us when we make up our minds to set
about the task. "The way to resume is to resume," said Horace Greeley,
once, when the country was frightened at a prospect which turned out to be
not in the least frightful; it was at the moment of the resumption of
specie payments for Treasury notes. The Treasury simply resumed,--there
was not a ripple of danger or excitement when the day of resumption came
around.

It will be precisely so when the people resume control of their own
government. The men who conduct the political machines are a small
fraction of the party they pretend to represent, and the men who exercise
corrupt influences upon them are only a small fraction of the business men
of the country. What we are banded together to fight is